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On Christmas Eve, snow falls softly on the small adobe house perched in a field on the edge of the pueblo. Young Ben Touchstone, a half-breed, feels a tear snake past his cheekbone to his mouth. Born with pale skin, straw colored hair and cobalt eyes, his sad expression is reflected in the window. Rejected by the pueblo, he also feels the pain of knowing he is regarded as an oddity by anglos. Even the tourists on the plaza in Santa Fe cast curious glances. Ben feels forsaken in a strange limbo between the cultures. That night, in the mysterious chapel at Chimayo, he is startled and bewildered by the majestic appearance of his angel who promises Ben she will intervene and counsel him at every crossroad of his life. But does she? For many years Ben is puzzled by her absence. Will he be able to discern whether people in his life have been sent by the angel, or are they dark forces dispatched by some demonic being? Moving between the abject poverty of Tesuque pueblo and the wealthy social life of Santa Fe, Ben is constantly confronted with choices, choices he alone must make. Only in the final pages of the novel does Ben comprehend the significance and fulfillment of the angel's mysterious promises made thirty years earlier in the chapel at Chimayo.